Last week I walked away from a Google offer that included a 70% raise. A large portion of this was a rather dehumanizing interview process, along with the realization that the process doesn't select for people I want to work with, and weeds out most people who I do. I managed to do just enough in my interviews to squeak through, but in doing so realized that it wasn't for me.
Walking through the cafeteria made me feel like I was back in CMU CS again, in a bad way.
I think you may have left with the wrong impression. If you ask Googlers or Xooglers alike, most agree that the people here are actually the best thing about Google. Like anywhere else, there are some bad apples, but compared to most other places the people here are on average more talented, nicer human beings and more helpful. Certainly compared to your typical startup or other BigCo.
In my nearly 3 years here, that is my experience as well. I've also spoken to many engineers who have left who lamented the quality of their fellow engineering talent at their supposedly 'hot' startup, compared to their former team at Google. Or having to deal with way more unprofessional (or crazy) management, prima-donna teammates, etc.
As far as my specific interviewers are concerned, I liked 7 of the 8 as individuals, which is great. What I didn't like was the company felt like a monoculture. Same schools, same majors, same pre-education background. Everybody looks the same, dresses the same, etc.
The process, on the other hand. Ugh. I have zero respect for Google as a company after that.
It starts with the standard phone screen/day-long onsite/hazing ritual. Then come phone calls with teams, and teams saying "yeah, we want you", and me saying "sure, sounds good". The recruiter basically said "time for the higher-ups to rubber stamp this, and here's the $$ to expect". Someone up the chain said "well, we're not so sure, let's haul him back here for another round of onsite interviews". Which I did, it went through the same process, and the response was "well, maybe not you for this role, but lets set you up with more teams".
All of this finally goes through, and I get an offer. Then there's a negotiation that goes something like:
Me: I'd like 4 weeks to think about it while a couple of other applications come back (keeping in mind they've dragged this on about 2 months longer than it needed to be).
Google: You get 2.
Me: I'm at a conference week #2, but I'll do what i can to get a decision to you Friday.
<Fast forward to monday of week #2>
Google: Have you made up your mind yet?
Me: I'd like to look at my options, and I'll get back to you COB Friday
Google: It's really important that we hear beginning of day Friday
<Fast forward to wednesday>
Google: Have you made up your mind yet?
Me: No. One of the options I was looking at is now off the table.
Google: So WTF are you waiting for.
Me: The other options
<Fast forward to Thursday>
<Phone rings while I'm at the conference>
Me: You can't pay me enough to deal with this.
Maybe no individual involved is a prima-donna, but the ego showed by the company as a whole through the recruitment process is stunning. It felt like I was dealing with the star quarterback who never considered that when they asked someone on a date, they might get turned down.
In my experience, this is standard HR pressure. Not saying every company is like this, but once I'm given an offer I expect HR to use any carrot or stick to get me to accept.
> What I didn't like was the company felt like a monoculture. Same schools, same majors, same pre-education background. Everybody looks the same, dresses the same, etc.
One reason you might have gotten this impression is that Google picks interviewers who have a lot of overlap in expertise with your resume so they can ask questions tailored to you. For example, if you have a PhD in computer science, many of your interviewers will, too.
I'm a Googler, and I don't think Google is a monoculture. Okay, maybe everyone does dress the same. But I've had teammates from wildly different cultural backgrounds—including Irish, Romanian, German, Hungarian, Israeli, Iranian, Pakistani, and Indian, and Chinese. Even among teammates from the US, it's not all the same schools. I went to the University of Iowa, which probably isn't one you had in mind. I've had teammates without a college degree (and I don't just mean interns).
I do think the interview process sucks. IMHO, it's the most bureaucratic part of Google. Sorry for your bad experience...
Google: "Just checking in to see if you have an update for me? Can we set a time to speak on Friday?"
Me: "I decided to pass on [OTHER OPPORTUNITY]. I let my manager know about the offer last Thursday. I am out at a conference this week, and we're going to discuss options on Friday.
Does end-of-the-day Friday work for you? 5? 6?"
Google: "I need to speak to you in the morning on Friday.
if you are passing up [OTHER OPPORTUNITY, misspelled] why are we waiting till Friday. Can we talk now?"
Also, It's hard to say "abuse" with a straight face, when at the end of the line there's a serious payday involved. It's easy to say "let's make sure we get it right", when 6-figure checks are involved.
It just felt... off, though. Like, it would have felt normal if it was 7 years ago, and I was straight out of school, and as a process to separate amongst the folks in a given CS class.
As someone who has worked as an engineer, though? It was disconcerting. Writing 20 lines of code is very different than writing 20,000, and the process that:
(1) selects for the best writers of 20 lines of code, while thoroughly ignoring the skills required to write 20,000.
(2) is exhausting. Like, none of the questions were "difficult", per se, but it was a draining process. I know the grades I got probably got worse as the day went on, and it wasn't because the questions got harder. It was just a matter of "are we done here yet"?
Anyway, I guess it was also surprising, b/c Google is relatively known for having "the best" hiring process, and it just felt flawed, arbitrary, hostile, and not quite designed right. Basically, it felt more like a hazing ritual that existed because "we went through it" than anything that pertained to building a good team.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think HR's pushiness might be a result of their process yielding so few offers, then even fewer people accepting offer letters. It could be resulting in HR having to work A LOT harder than the industry average to fill positions.
In my experience pretty much everyone is excellent, apart from the lower level non-engineering managers. These tend to be grads from top schools who have zero previous work experience. I encountered at least three or four in my time at Google who were just out to prove themselves and get promotions and regularly threw their teams under the bus.
>Really smart people who are really insecure about their intellect?
Condescension. Condescension everywhere.
It is people who are at the top of their game that are the nicest. My old CEO, who is head of a company everyone here probably knows about, was such a chill and friendly person.
Sometimes, but not necessarily. Sometimes it's people who always have to be "right" - which means every conversation (whether about technical things or what you did last weekend) devolves into a carefully orchestrated dance of definitions that allows everyone to escape with their egos intact - because he conceives of himself as "the smart guy" or "the guy who is always right" - so if he's wrong, he changes the rules[1].
Sometimes it's the reverse - the exhaustion of needing to always be "on" intellectually, because someone will point out the smallest inconsistency or fuzziness (again, in non-technical contexts where it doesn't matter)[2].
Sometimes it's because I'm super bored by conversations that mostly consist of geek-culture or technical references, where I get the reference but don't laugh because it's not that clever or not that funny, and people assume I don't get it (maybe that one's on me, though).
I've never been to a Google campus or event so I don't know what it's like there - I'm just describing my own experience at a place like CMU CS.
[1] An absurd example was the guy who claimed the song "Right Here Waiting" was by Bryan Adams. I told him it was Richard Marx, but he insisted that it was Bryan Adams. I didn't care so I just let it go. Later that day he emailed me a link to a mislabeled Youtube video as "proof" - when really it was just an ego salve for him to prove to me that he was justified in claiming that it was Bryan Adams. I offer this anecdote because it illustrates a common personality flaw of smart people (especially ones who spent their formative years as the smartest person they knew)
[2] Think comic book guy's xylophone comment from The Simpsons
Thanks for a very interesting perspective. To further your argument RE:[2], I would like to point out that comic book guy was not the one who made the magic xylophone comment. Though I did not attend CMU nor do I work at Google, so perhaps pedantic jerks are simply endemic to our profession. ;) Possibly because it attracts the sorts of people that have no problem fighting compilers, I'm not sure.
Maybe this guy wasn't quite arrogant enough to work at google, I mean he seems pretty arrogant, but I think you really have to be extremely arrogant and up on a moral high horse to work at google.
Walking through the cafeteria made me feel like I was back in CMU CS again, in a bad way.